SEO Vision: SEO News, Tips and More

Time flies here in Washington and with a few sandwiches in us, we’re ready to get to the show! Put your mind to it and it only takes a couple hours to turn a big pile of boxes to shnaz-zzy booth.

As we’ve mentioned before, we’ll be having a lobster raffle, free t-shirts, Q&A about search and web marketing, videocasting and more!

Show starts tonight at 6:30PM.

And here we are! After a day earlier than any of us cares to discuss, some drizzly weather north of the Potomac and a fair amount of hoofing around the massive Gaylord National Harbor Resort Center, we’re in!

We’re still warming up the video camera and audio gear, but expect some video updates this evening and audio blippets as Hall heats up on the tradeshow trail and welcomes partners to Insights 2008.

And if you haven’t checked it out already, see everything we’re offering at booth 628.

See you at the show!

As we gear up for day-by-day coverage at Sage Software Insights, we tackle the question — what do I do when I REALLY want my graphic navigation? We say it several times, and say again, you shouldn’t need a graphic navigation, but if you really must have it… we’ve got some tips on how to keep it from dusting your chance of getting rankings.

SEO Audio: Episode 31

As a lover of all things audio (and the podcasting format in particular), it was with great joy that I read a SiteProNews newsletter article on “Enhancing Web Effectiveness with Sound Design.”

Audio has a powerful effect on an audience. The internet has a powerful effect on an audience. And whoever said “ne’er the twain shall meet?”

We’ll be talking more and more about using web video to make a powerful impression, but let’s not forget that even though the moving pictures make a movie, an, uh, “move”-ie, the audio is just as important.

If not more.

The thing about audio is that it captures your mind and is cheap to produce. You can put it on your ipod and take it with you to the gym, take it on the bus and enjoy it while driving. Try the same with a movie and you run into problems.

Also, the file size of audio is much smaller than video, which in turn lowers the bandwidth expense of adding video to your site… and increases how many people can effectively enjoy it with a primitive connection.

Audio is not for everything, but for the right offer, it can be transformative. For example:

• Have your actual customers voice their testimonials
• Create a voice-version as an alternative to text on your website… great for people with limited patience or with a vision impairment
• Jazz up descriptions of your products with professional narration of key selling points and some tactfully used effects and music
• Create a weekly podcast covering hot topics about your industry (hey, it works for us)
• Use audio as training or learning materials to accompany webinars, webcasts, or PDFs

And that’s just brainstorming for a minute or two — the point is, there’s a way you can use it on your site, and the uses of audio are only limited to your imagination. Which, by the way, is the canvas of audio.